Your website needs to be ready for customers to take advantage of online car sales to make sure you can reach your customers where they are.
This means you implement the tools and aspects of the sales process that become useful during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether you’re a relatively new dealership or you just need to review and update your information, you should know what your customers are looking for when they want to buy a car online.
Offer Budgeting Advice to Your Audience
It’s not your job as a car dealer to determine the budget for your customers, but you can help them with the car buying process by offering information that shoppers need to consider. Connect your blog with financial advice through your social media posts to give customers an easy place to find the information needed. Just giving potential shoppers a few tips and the guidance they desire will put your name at the front of mind for car shopping.
Do You Offer Online Loan Preapproval?
One of the most important aspects of online car sales that you need to offer is loan preapproval. This allows your shoppers to see how much they can spend on a car and understand what vehicles they can look at and possibly bring home. If you don’t have online loan preapproval, you will be missing the shoppers looking for a complete online experience.
Can a Customer Get a Trade-In Value Online?
While this is going to be a contingent item, you want to provide a complete online experience for your customers. This includes offering a place where they can input the details of their trade and get an estimated value. This should trigger your dealership to reach out and either send an appraiser to their home for a full valuation or to offer an invitation to the shopper to complete the trade process.
How Easy is it to Shop Your Inventory Online?
The biggest and most important part of the online car sales process is understanding the variety of models offered and what the typical monthly payment might be. This can be personalized for your customers who create an online account, get preapproved for financing, and then use this information to see the various payment amounts for the vehicles you have for sale.
Can Customers Easily Research Your Vehicles?
Whether you offer links to manufacturer’s pages specifically related to the vehicles you sell or you offer a complete list of features for each one, you need to make it easy for your shoppers to research what you offer. You could have a link that takes them to the window sticker to go over the various features and benefits of the models you’re offering.
How Easy is it to Work With Your Team from Home?
Fewer customers are looking to come into the dealership unless they absolutely have to. Do you have a feature on your website to allow your shoppers to ask questions, go for a virtual test drive, or have a video chat with one of your team members? This could be the feature that makes the biggest difference to a customer and allows them to decide whether or not to work with you.
Are You Offering a Return Policy?
Do your customers have a specific amount of time they can spend with a car and return it if they need to? This is a great way to make your shoppers feel more comfortable working with your team. You won’t need to add more tools to your website, simply advertise that you have a return policy for a specified period of time or number of miles.
How Are You Showcasing Your Specials?
Are you making it easy for your online customers to enjoy the same sales benefits and financing deals like those that visit your dealership? You could showcase several models that are offered with specials through the events you have every month and let your shoppers know they have a limited amount of time to take advantage of the sale. Make this part of your online car sales promotional efforts and see many customers check out your deals.
Make Online Car Sales Easier for Your Customers
If you’re not sure how to give your customers the online shopping experience they desire, think about how other items are sold online and try to mimic the processes and features used on other websites. There is now a set of customers in your market that will likely never want to step foot in a dealership again and you need to be ready to help them buy a car through your website.
